Argument constructions in Swedish

The project is financed through the Swedish Academy and the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History, and Antiquities, with support from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation. For information, contact Benjamin Lyngfelt.

This project investigates argument structure in Swedish from a construction grammar perspective. Using the construction patterns presented in major Swedish dictionaries, the analysis will focus the argument patterns as such rather than lexical valency. After an initial pilot study of reflexive and deponent constructions, the main focus at present concerns three-place predicates.

The purpose of this survey of argument constructions is, in general, to capture other generalizations than are discernible from a lexical viewpoint; and, in particular, to build a foundation to also account for such combinations of verbs and argument structures that are not covered by lexical valency. On a more theoretical level, the project hopes to contribute to the understanding of the interplay between lexicon and syntax, by trying to shed some light on what aspects of argument structure depend on lexical valency and what aspects rather seem to follow from syntactic argument constructions.